U.K. Plans to Increase Solar Power Eight-Fold by 2020

Energy Minister Greg Barker said the
U.K. can multiply its capacity to produce solar power eight-fold
by 2020 in an effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Barker said he’s consulting with companies about how the
government can achieve its forecast of having 10 gigawatts of
solar power within the next decade and thinks 20 gigawatts is
achievable, up from 2.4 gigawatts at the end of June. In
Birmingham, he said he will deliver a strategy for solar power
in the spring of 2014 after assessing industry views.

“I believe we can go faster and further,” Barker said in
a 38-page solar power strategy document today. “Along with many
in the industry, I think that up to 20 gigawatts of deployed
solar is not only desirable but also potentially achievable
within a decade.”

Prime Minister David Cameron’s government already is
fighting a backlash against wind farms, which local groups say
blight the landscape, and to check power prices that have risen
to pay for the spread of renewable energy. Ed Miliband, the
leader of the Labour opposition, pledged last month to freeze
utility bills if his party wins the election due in 2015.

“New solar installations must be sensitive to public
opinion and mindful of wider environmental and visual impacts,”
Barker said in the text of a speech issued by his office in
London. “The impacts of deployment on grid systems balancing,
grid connectivity and financial incentives will also have to be
considered, ensuring the challenges of deploying high volumes of
solar PV are addressed.”

Grid Parity

By working with companies, Barker said the U.K. will be
able to speed up progress toward grid parity, where solar power
can compete with fossil fuels without relying on subsidies.

Solar capacity has risen from 94 megawatts at the end of
2010, according to Barker’s Department of Energy and Climate
Change. Ministers identify the technology as one of eight that
can help Britain meet its European Union target of getting 15
percent of all energy from renewables by 2020 and meeting a
domestic goal to cut emissions 34 percent in the three decades
through 2020.

In today’s strategy document, the energy department said
solar deployment must be cost-effective, cur carbon dioxide, and
be appropriately sited. Assistance to the industry must take
into account its effects on balancing the power grid, the
government said.